LOOK BACK

SEVEN OAKS >> The ruins of the scorched cabin where Christopher Dorner engaged police in a deadly shootout last February have been leveled and the ground covered over with dirt. All that remains is a dull red deteriorating outbuilding and the crumbled ruins of a river rock well.

And yet, for some, the area has become a shrine.

“To me, it’s hallowed ground right here, where you and I are standing,” said Roger Loftis, a sheriff’s deputy based in Yucaipa whose best friend was Jeremiah MacKay, the sheriff’s detective killed by Dorner during the standoff a year ago Wednesday. “There’s not a day goes by that we don’t think about Jeremiah.”

Loftis was one of several of Mackay’s friends and colleagues who gathered at the site of the standoff on Seven Oaks Road on Wednesday to pay their respects to the fallen deputy on the one-year anniversary of his death.

Ken Jamieson, a sergeant at the sheriff’s Rancho Cucamonga station, stood with his girlfriend, Sandra Wood, gazing at the site of the cabin in which Dorner made his last stand with a sheriff’s SWAT team once stood.

Like Loftis, Wednesday was the first time Jamieson visited the place where his close friend and colleague died.

“I just couldn’t get myself to come up beforehand, and today being the one-year anniversary of the shooting, we thought we’d come up, spend some solemn time and remember,” said Jamieson, who is also president of the Inland Empire Emerald Society, a fraternal order of Irish-bred police officers and firefighters of which MacKay was also a member.

For Jamieson, the quiet, secluded area nestled in the mountains near Barton Flats is a place of striking contrasts when reflecting on the Dorner tragedy.

“It’s quite a contrast between the beautiful mountains and scenery, and you can hear the creek in the background, to be the scene of something so tragic and evil. It really gets you thinking,” Jamieson said.

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At 1:25 p.m., the sheriff’s radio communications system briefly went silent in observance of MacKay’s death. That was the time he was fatally shot by Dorner.

On Tuesday, the District Attorney’s Office released its report on its investigation of the Dorner manhunt and standoff, saying the actions of 37 law enforcement personnel and five law enforcement agencies involved in the pursuit, shootout, standoff and the death of Dorner were justified..

Dorner waged a 10-day rampage in Southern California in protest of his 2008 firing from the Los Angeles Police Department. He killed an Irvine couple and a Riverside police officer before taking refuge in the San Bernardino Mountains, where he abducted a Big Bear Lake couple, stole their SUV and led authorities on a pursuit into Seven Oaks, where the standoff ensued and then ended with Dorner taking his own life.

“It’s sad that innocent people in Irvine, Riverside and our county had to pay the ultimate price for somebody who was clearly out on a mission,” said sheriff’s Deputy Chief Bill Lenew, who oversees the command of eight sheriff’s stations from Chino Hills to Yucaipa and who also joined his colleagues Wednesday on the mountain. “I just felt it was the right thing to do, to come and give respects.”

In honor of MacKay, Jamieson pulled from his pickup a bottle of Knappogue Castle single malt Irish whiskey, aged 12 years, and three shot glasses. He filled each glass, then he and Wood walked back to the parcel where the cabin once stood. Jamieson set one of the glasses down on a boulder next to a “for sale” sign propped against a utility pole that lay in front of the property. It was MacKay’s shot.

Jamieson and Wood said a toast, then downed their shots in one gulp.

“This was Jeremiah’s favorite,” Jamieson said of the top shelf liquor.

MacKay would not have wanted it any other way, Loftis said.

“Jeremiah was not the kind of guy who would want his friends to be sad. He liked a good cigar and he liked a good bottle of scotch,” Loftis said. “He liked to have fun, He was boisterous and loud. He wouldn’t want to see a lot of tears. So we’re here thinking about our friend today. We just wanted to be close to him.”

Retired San Bernardino County sheriff’s Deputy Manuel “Manny” Acueto, one of MacKay’s closest friends, said he had been watching TV last February when the news broke about Dorner.

Like the others, Acueto couldn’t bring himself to visit the site where MacKay was shot — until Wednesday.

“It’s the closest I’ve been to (MacKay) in awhile, to be in the same spot where he was at,” Acueto said. “It’s bittersweet because there’s a sadness that comes about it. I won’t get to see my friend again. That’s where it hurts.”